


The Man of The Hour

by BannedBloodOranges



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3, Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M, Nuka-World Amusement Park (Fallout), Nuka-World DLC (Fallout 4), References to PTSD, Short MultiChap, The Lone Wanderer Is a Legend for a Reason, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29538453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BannedBloodOranges/pseuds/BannedBloodOranges
Summary: They have a new challenger on the gauntlet.Porter Gage thought he would never see the day."Well, I be blowed." Gage leans over the railing. A calibre bullet zings off the line of mesh seperatin' Vlad's head and the arena and the Overboss throws back his head and laughs. "We've got ourselves a celebrity."
Relationships: Male Lone Wanderer & Original Female Character, Porter Gage & Male Lone Wanderer, Porter Gage/Male Lone Wanderer, Porter Gage/Male Sole Survivor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	The Man of The Hour

**Author's Note:**

> This is all Rabenherz's fault.
> 
> Vlad is marked "alternative sole survivor" as he is another survivor from Vault 111, an ex-military man and previous best friend to my Sole Survivor (Adam Dickens) and not the nicest of chaps.
> 
> Leaf Green belongs to Rabenherz and they are all too happy to let me borrow him. 
> 
> Non-profit fun only.

You can always tell what kind of buffoon they are getting all new and fresh from the Commonwealth when they go through the gauntlet like a radchicken ready for the roastin'. Whether they turn out all tender or burned or even moderately well done he knows what kind of boy they are facin'. (Or girl, he ain't sexist. Everyone dies the same.)

To his great and glad surprise, it ain't just a boy or a girl but both; some skinny scavangin' type with copper hair all wound up tight around a sunburnt neck and this weeny bit of skirt stuck to his arm with eyes all round like a rad deer.

"Well, I be blowed." Gage leans over the railing. The Overboss has his own private box, big red chair and serving robot, and proper wire mesh to belt away the bullets, not the hamster cage shit the riffraff deal with. "We got ourselves a celebrity."

Vlad drops his whiskey with a snort, but those washed out baby blues of his get all narrow and Gage could chuckle himself hoarse. Baby is already jealous.

"Huh?" He pats down his wrecked jeans. "What's all this about a celebrity, Gage?"

"What, you be living under a rock, boss?" He pauses at the doubt bent in Vlad's brow. Ex vault boy as if he could forget. "Yeah, bad choice of words. But you must have heard of the Lone Wanderer. Scourge of the Enclave, most likely to kill all raiders within a ten-mile radius?"

"What?" Vlad slaps his knee (he has all these weird pre-war quirks and tics. Kinda cute, if you ask Gage, especially when he's mufflin' all 'dem old timey curses into the pillow as Gage rides him raw.) "That skinny little brat?"

And Vlad has a look in his eye now, like a Deathclaw trackin' a Brahmin babe, leanin' forward to get a better view.

A calibre bullet zings off the line of mesh seperatin' Vlad's head and the arena and the Overboss throws back his head and laughs.

The kid is crouched in the centre of the pit, the barrel of his rifle smokin' and the young girl tucked away behind him. 

Vlad claps his hands. The ailing raiders pick up the clue quick and the Operators join in and even what is left of the Disciples begin to whoop. Takes a whole minute before literal chicken brain Mason catches on and the pack stomp their feet and make the arena shake with it.

Leaf cocks his chin up like a right ol' merc and yeah, Gage thinks, he is plenty fine to look at, he can see where the Overboss is comin' from, creamy skin and all his teeth nice and white and a figure he could get one hand around, let alone two.

Huh.

Vlad lifts his hand and the sound dies as soon as it started.

"Well," Vlad leans over their balcony. Gage is sure to keep his back, forever the right-hand man. "We have a celebrity in our midst."

Pretty boy takes his lady's hand and glowers up.

Vlad scratches his chin, all fascinated, and Gage cannot help a grin because his Overboss is in the mood and by and by, when Overboss is in the mood shit gets interestin'.

"Hey, Mason?" He calls smoothly to the gibbering wild eyed Pack Leader, practically gnawing at his own arm to get a taste of blood. "You still got that Mutant Behemoth locked up tight? Ol' Reliable?"

Jesus. Ol' Reliable is ten feet of ugly, and that's just his temper. A mad green hulk they'd caught snoopin' around Kiddie Kingdon chewin' on a feral ghoul and belchin' nightmares. Took twenty men to take him down, cost ten to keep the mad fucker alive. Gage lights a cigarette and tsks at how sorry it be, but he can't help it, he's been a raider for the last thirty eight years and excitement heats up his belly and it is a shame, for such a pretty thing to go down all hard like, but the Overboss is the Overboss and nothin' stands in his way.

Leaf swears and ushers the girl into the corner. She crouches and covers her head. One of their "processors" eyes her neck and cautiously starts picking out the right kind of collar. Lavender would go nicely with her skin tone if his choice is anything to go by.

A great rattlin' shakes the crowd and a roar comes crawling out of the gutters and the girl screams and something in Vlad twitches, a pull in the corner of his eye, _oh no boss, we're not havin' that, not today._

Gage fastens his hand on his shoulder before his sweetheart can get anymore juddery and hauls him down into the seat.

"Sit tight, boss," He mutters. “I’ll take care of the rest."

Vlad says nothin' but looks up at him all meek and it is a naked, stupid vulnerability but at least its Gage's and Gage's alone.

God, with that huge man all leanin' into him like a nervous kitten Gage's groin starts bouncin' at the sight and for fuck's sake he's gotta concentrate, at least for the next fifteen bloody minutes (literally.)

He tears himself away, pleased as hell all the other gangs are glued to their mesh nets, desperate to see limbs go a splurgin'.

A shadow stretches across the rocks and the whiskey in Vlad's glass ripples and a huge dragging club rakes up the dust in swarms so thick it's difficult to see.

The kid drops his backpack, sheds his layers. Beneath it all, he's toothpick thin, a busted rifle hung off his back with duct tape all latched around the handle. 

"Huh." Gage taps his cigarette ashes into the pit. "If I were you, I'd duck."

In that mad crush of yowls and jeers, why should the kid hear his voice above all others? But the kid looks up at that precise moment, hair all mad across his fearful streak of a face and they lock eyes for a singular moment and well, that kid is pretty, never seen anythin' quite so fresh and fair. Then Ol' Reliable's bone hammer swings and the kid rolls between his legs and true to hell he's clamouring up the behemoth's back like a flea up a junkyard mutt's back.

He unhooks a blade from his boot and tries - bless his little heart - to hack through that thick neck to the jugular beneath, and instead just opens the skin, burbling mucus and blood down the screaming face of Ol' Reliable and _ugh_.

The mutant swings the kid like a ball on a mallet and flings him into the wings. The kid braces himself, rolling back onto his feet, cocks his gun and -

A straight, clean shot, right between the eyes.

Gage drops his cigarette.

Ol' Reliable shudders, drool and blood and god fuck knows pooling in the gape of that twisted mouth of his, and he slumps with such force the concrete cracks where he falls, and every single bloodthirsty fool goes all so quiet, before Vlad -back to his firm self, thank fuck - laughs, pure and delighted and slams his hands together.

They screech and holler and shake the walls and Leaf - parents must have hated him, poor kid - limps over to the girl and gets her up, his head dropping to his chest like he's ashamed.

Gage promptly lights another cigarette.

* * *

They've taken their local celebrity and the girl into custody and shacked them up under the Grille in one of the Overboss's better apartments. 

Nuka World is lit up like fireworks, all that blinkin' neon and chipper music drawling out over the loudspeakers. It glows from their window, the ultimate view for the Overboss. 

Vlad is in the shower - another weird, wild pre-war habit - and Gage sits on the bed with his boots on, firing casual pot shots at a long line of Nuka Cola Bottles. Through the bottles Nuka World is reflected, warped and neon bright.

The toilet flushes and out comes Vlad all pink necked in a towel, inky hair stuck to his cheeks and chin and the deep scar lined from his eye to his brow. 

Colter never had the presence of mind to wander about in a towel. When he would call Gage for sex, it was always in the dark, under covers, Colter spitting if Gage pulled too tight or was too slow in bringin' the selfish bastard to climax.

But Vlad, oh no. Not his little buttercup.

"You okay, beautiful?"

"Shut it." Vlad dries his hair. Overboss he might be, but Vlad is still naive when it comes to raiders and their physical conduct. No boss would ever appear so damn nude and open in front of his second in command, even if they were lovers, but Gage ain't no basic raider and Vlad ain't no self-involved Overboss.

"You hit them all?" He says gruffly, turning to stare at the disappearing line up. His spine shimmers beneath the skin, party lights flashin' and cracklin' on and off. Gage ain't no scientist, but here he be wonderin' whether it's that which gives Vlad that extra kick.

Do you love the Overboss or the Overboss's spine? Ain't that a million-dollar question?

"Not all of them," Gage confesses and opens his arms. "Still one big ol' bottle I wanna hit."

"Seriously?" Vlad sniffs, but he ain't so mean, not how he comes over all obedient like, the bone breakin' Overboss crawlin' up into his arms and kissing his neck, so devoted it could bring a tear to a weaker man's eye. "You got no better lines for me, cyclops?"

"That's very insensitive, boss."

"Fuck off."

Gage chuckles and swings an arm around Vlad, who tucks his head under his chin. Don't quite know how they manage to wrangle on this single seat, Vlad bein' as big as he is and Gage more a scrapper than a brawler, as his Ma may or might not have said. Gage lights a cigarette, and Vlad taps it outta his hand.

“You’re smoking, Gage,” He mouths into his chest. “You’re smokin’ an awful lot, which means something has bit your brain and isn’t letting go.”

“Hm?” Gage lets the cigarette smoke trail from both sides of his mouth. It might make him look sexy, get his Overboss in the mood. Better yet, keep him distracted. “Just enjoying one of my many filthy habits, Boss. You bein’ the biggest habit of them all, mind.”

“Heh.” Vlad takes a drag from his stolen cigarette. Gage murmurs into his hair, feeling the hum of that spine. Apparently, the General of a Minutemen has a matching one. Makes sense, if they both rolled out the same vault, even with Vlad doing it a couple of years before it was fashionable. A trendsetter, his Boss. “Nothing to do with the little celebrity we picked up, huh?”

Trendsetting insecurity being a prevailing one.

There is a twitch and coil in his Vlad’s back, all upset muscle. Not that Gage can blame him on the jealousy front. Even if the kid is – by his own lousy calculations – meeting near the three-decade mark, kid still looks as fresh as any Vault Dweller. And Gage ain’t too dumb to not know the irony in his own jealousy, especially when Vlad goes all dewy eyed over the memories of the do-gooder running his little morality crusade back on the mainland.

“Actually Boss, yes.” Vlad tries to reel off his lap with a growl, but Gage holds him tight, hisses a warning between his teeth and his Boss goes all limp like a kitten. Good. “Wanna see what we can do with him. Seems a bit of a waste to lay him to the dust so soon, not when he can be of service to us.”

“Service?” The spine blinkers dusky blue, a dangerous sulk. A portable mood ring latched onto his baby’s nervous system. Those eggheads at Med X were really fucked. Vlad sinks back into him. “What kind of service?”

“You know there are still some wild places in our park, Boss.”

“Yeah?” Vlad abandons his towel. Now he’s trying to be distracting, bless. “We’ve cleared this place out. There’s nothing left.”

“Mostly true.” Gage scratches his stubble. Needs to shave when he remembers. Vlad keeps his hairs plucked like a lady. Pre-war habits. Hygiene, a waste of time. “But you might not know the Lone Wanderer, not like I or our dearly departed raider kin. The sarcasm is for the latter, you get?”

Vlad scoffs.

“The boy a big fish, is he?”

“The biggest, Boss.”

“Really?” Vlad scratches Gage’s back. Trying to rise the blood under the nails, instead of saying it outright. All that passive aggression ain’t good for his skin, boss. “And what’s your idea in cooking this big fucker?”

“We-ll.” Gage smacks his lips for effect. “Riddle me this, Boss. What better way to boost morale then using our dear guest as a janitor for our park? Have me clear up the shit areas so we don’t have to, then get rid of him in a big ol' floorshow for the gangs?”

“You think this is…”

“A brilliant idea, Boss,” Gage says, and he’s sure to say it the way Vlad likes it, all nice and final, and Vlad nods, slowly, Gage’s cigarette clung to his lower lip and burning softly down. Lights up his eyes like moon water or some shit. “It’ll give our bored maniacs some entertainment, if nothin’ else, and stops us from having to lose grunts or resources trying to keep the ferals out or gut the bloodworms, and you know how much I hate the latter, Boss.”

“Okay.” Vlad nods. He’s still gnawing at the bit to say somethin’, but Gage knows he hates bringing up a point when Gage has just shot it down. Makes him feel insecure, as if Gage’s affection is so easily swayed. Bullshit, Gage knows, but now it works in his favour, so he keeps quiet. “Who’s gonna keep _an eye_ on this legend, anyway?”

“Well.” Gage smirks and taps his finger on his mechanized patch. “The trick is in the question, Boss.”


End file.
